/sci/ - Science & Math

>>14565738

>>12635603
The Shuttle was originally just that, a Shuttle. It was meant to be a small Earth-to-LEO crew transport vehicle. A spaceplane shape was selected over capsules because spaceplanes can control their reentry much better and thus reduce deceleration loads. NASA had this plan where the Shuttle was just a small part of a whole space infrastructure involving stations, landers, atomic interplanetary transports, and propellant depots. However, when Nixon took office he demanded that NASA will vastly reduce the scope of that plan in the face of budget cuts. They were forced to abandon the whole plan apart from the Shuttle which had it's scope increased to include cargo, and the terrible vehicle was born

They took this from you

>>12326421
Their paintings do have a dream-like quality about them

>>12275440
>What would a properly functioning system look like?

>>12247020

>>12236277
I partially blame that on the environment of spaceflight not moving on from the 60s. If there were much more BEO stuff going on, then Russia would've moved on from Soyuz or at least made a BEO variant.

>>12146480
>If the race went on, what would the program after Apollo have been called?
Olympus

>>12078062
Honestly, I think NASA is being sabotaged so that the agency doesn't try to jump start Apollo 2.0. Apollo was expensive as hell, and I recall reading a historical article about how the US government was very aware of this and wanted to keep the agency limited. If the agency weren't limited, then they would be able to push the boundaries of space flight, inspire people, and then those people would want more Apollo-like missions. Which will further strain the US budget (or at least there was a concern). I think that's why the Shuttle was adopted and accepted despite it clearly not meeting any of its design goals, because it kept NASA's capability limited enough to prevent it from being more inspiring.

>>12029381
Is there any chance we can nuke some ocean currents to prevent these storms from forming or something?

>>11986950
Hard to say, because it wasn't just Nixon who wanted to cut down NASA. The whole of Congress did too. After Apollo, they lost interest in giving the massive funding to NASA. I doubt that there would be a manned Mars mission, even if NASA went with the ultimate hindsight launch vehicle for the time, because such a mission still requires a significant amount of funding that Congress wasn't willing to give it.

>>11802857

>>11715827
NASA had a fairly solid plan for involved space missions.

>I know SpaceX has huge interest in it as well as NASA
SpaceX will most likely start practicing orbital refueling within the year of SS+SH finally reaching orbit. NASA seems interested, but it's hard to tell if the interest is genuine or a planned excuse to farm grants.

>>11689399
It could work, but it would need to have a propulsion system that's better than chemical or else you might as well use an additional upper stage for simplicity of mission architecture. NASA did some studies post-Apollo pre-Shuttle and came up with concepts for nuclear tugs.

>>11593030
>Unironically something we can build today.
But can't right now due to political fuckery.

>>11510386
They robbed this from us.

>>11439948
>you won't be one of them

If you can change one physical thing about the Solar system to make space flight easier, then what would it be (assuming no unintended consequences)?

>>11409530
It makes me sad that the groundwork for these types of missions and infrastructure were made so long ago, while we were told for years that it was simply too expensive to do, only to have SpaceX come by and show that space flight can be done much more cheaply.

>>11397085